President Obama didn’t just pardon a couple of turkeys at the White House yesterday, but unveiled a plan to nearly double protected habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl.

The birds have been classified as a threatened species since 1990, and environmental groups went to court to expand the 5.3 million acres dedicated to protecting the bird under the Bush administration. The federal government “finalized a science-based proposal identifying lands in the Pacific Northwest that are essential to the survival and recovery of the northern spotted owl.”

But the House Natural Resources Committee chairman — from one of the affected states, Washington — warned that the final critical habitat rule released by the Interior Department could further endanger thousands of jobs in an industry that has already taken a hit.

“The Obama Administration spent months working to revise a plan that was fatally flawed from the beginning. While this final rule must be fully reviewed, I remain very concerned that it will cost millions of taxpayer dollars and lock up large portions of federal land without addressing the root of the issue, the predatory Barred Owl,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that the final designation is “based on the best available science … including feedback from experts, regional stakeholders, land management agencies and public comment.”

It reduces the amount of critical habitat in California, Oregon and Washington that was proposed last February by 4.2 million acres. All private lands and the significant majority of state lands identified in the proposal have been excluded from the final rule, according to Fish & Wildlife.

However, the designation can apply to any private or state lands if proposed activities involve federal funding or permitting.

“Expanding the Northern Spotted Owl’s critical habitat will further endanger the timber industry, the thousands of jobs that the industry supports, and forest health,” Hastings said.

Saying that the overall spotted owl population is declining at a rate of 2.9 percent per year, the service designated 9.29 million acres of critical habitat on federal land and 291,570 acres on state land.

There are about 3,000 to 5,000 spotted owls in the region, and conservationists say their numbers have dropped 40 percent in the past 25 years — a time period in which the owl became a poster bird for industry vs. environmentalists.

“The BLM and the USFWS have worked together to try to find the sweet spot – providing for the required conservation of the northern spotted owl and recognizing the importance of BLM lands to the social fabric of western Oregon. This rule is a direct result of those interactions” said Jerome Perez, Oregon/Washington state director for the Bureau of Land Management.

“We applied the best available science to identify the remaining habitat essential to the spotted owl’s recovery – and to ensure that our recovery partners have the clarity and flexibility they need to make effective land management decisions,” said Robyn Thorson, director of the Fish & Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region. “We fully support conservation strategies and forest treatments that restore the health and natural dynamics of entire forest ecosystems to sustain all their many values.”

Hastings stressed that more than timber jobs are at stake with the new rules, though — and warned that the owl could be hurt even more by ostensible measures to save it by restrictions on cutting dangerous forest growth.

“The 2012 wildfire season has been one of the worst on record. Washington state alone saw over 300,000 acres burned, including over 35,000 acres of current and proposed spotted owl habitat,” the chairman said. ”The Forest Service has also reported that the additional loss of habitat from post-fire beetle infestation would ‘adversely impact the spotted owl population.’”

And even with the years-long battle over the habitat between environmentalists and loggers, the spotted owl faces a threat from their own kind instead of humankind.

Some spotted owl conservation plans, including a proposal earlier this year from Fish & Wildlife, have called for killing or removing the larger, hardier, more aggressive barred owls that have migrated from the East Coast to encroach on the spotted owls’ territory and have been witnessed interbreeding or killing the little spotted birds, as well as taking their food and destroying nests.

Environmental groups cried foul, though, and accused land managers of using the barred owl as a scapegoat.

Conservation groups also said they were disappointed that the all private and most state lands were excluded from yesterday’s rule.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the land designation “marks the end of a dark chapter in the Endangered Species Act’s implementation when politics were allowed to blot out science.”

“It is, however, deeply disappointing that the Obama administration has elected to exclude all private and most state lands, which are absolutely essential to the recovery of the spotted owl and dozens of other wildlife species,” Greenwald said.

“The evidence is overwhelming that redwood forests are essential to the conservation of the species. Leaving them out of the final rule is a big mistake,” said Andrew Orahoske, conservation director for the Environmental Protection Information Center.

“The owl needs these areas of protected habitat to survive,” said Steve Holmer, senior policy advisor for American Bird Conservancy. “We remain concerned, however, that Fish and Wildlife may allow increased logging in critical habitat, which could also imperil the threatened marbled murrelet, and help the spotted owl’s competitor, the barred owl.”

As both sides panned the decision as not going far enough to protect either the owl or the jobs, conservationists are far more likely to have greater pull with the administration in the end. Defenders of Wildlife, for one, hailed Obama’s re-election as a win for environmentalists, then laid on the pressure.

“The president should reaffirm his past promise to let science guide natural resource policy in his administration. Important conservation policy decisions need to be grounded in and guided by sound science and not be driven by what is politically expedient,” said the group’s president, Jamie Rappaport Clark, earlier this month. “That should be something we all agree upon.”

Hastings, though, is holding out for a deal that all sides truly agree on.

“We need a solution based on sound science that will allow for active management to improve forest health, increase economic opportunity and jobs for our rural communities and schools, while also addressing the Barred Owl and protecting the Northern Spotted Owl from catastrophic wildfire,” he said.

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
Thane36425

The problem isn’t logging, it is a larger and more aggressive species of owl which is outcompeting the Spotted Owl. Go ahead, put more land off limits for use. It won’t change a thing. The Spotted Owl will keep dying out, maybe at a faster rate because the restrictions will benefit that species as well.

Stupid greens.

Of course government is also buying up land all over the country not just there. Parks and “Forever Wild” lands are cropping up everywhere. More land out of production forever, more jobs and local tax revenue lost forever. More humans displaced forever. And no, tourism doesn’t come close to making up the lost money and jobs. And let’s not forget that unmanaged lands are more susceptible to disease and insects getting out of hand and more debris build up which leads to the huge fire like those that hit the national parks out west and in Florida. There there is the problem of the feral hogs. This wild land will give them vast havens to multiply in while they wreck the ecosystems.

Still, none of that will matter to the greens. Show them a picture of an owl and they’ll get all weepy and that’s that.

Then they were meant to die out. It wouldn’t be the first species to die out that had nothing at all to do with mankind. Pretty much 95% of every species on the planet has gone extinct. Man should perhaps mind their own business and quit trying to save nature from itself.

Predators choose their diets. I don’t know if these larger owls will go after all the same small prey that the Spotted Owl does, or if they’ll choose bigger game. If that’s the case, we’ll have a big mistake. Mice can carry disease and they certainly are unwelcome pests in farms and homes. Once their bird predators are gone, their numbers could explode upward.

Species that go extinct by human deforestation are not “meant to go extinct.” They go extinct only because we’re destroying their habitats.

An owl will go after any rodent they want. And as someone else here pointed out, without “man” clearing out dead debris, the habitat becomes so choked that the spotted owl leaves anyway. Also, econazi’s refuse to allow land management producing HUGE forest fires.

And forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m thinking Canada doesn’t have a huge problem with deforestation. Your country is largely unpopulated.

It’s all well and good to mention that the two owls may not have the same tastes, but again, simply placing more and more land out of bounds will not fix the problem of one species out-competing another. It has been demonstrated that while they may not have the same tastes, they do indeed have the same requirements in living space, so setting aside land for one just puts aside more space for the other.

You either need to address the problem of the interlopers like they are attempting to do with blue birds by building specialized nesting boxes that have a very specific size entry hole that allows blue birds but not European Starlings or you need to shut up, go home and allow nature to take her course.

I really wish states would just start ignoring these federal statutes. Some states only have access to about 30% of their own territory. Plus, as stated above, feds apparently have no clue about land management (dead clearing) and the fires that have resulted pump waaaaay more pollutants into the air than a fleet of jumbo jets.

These statutes are just a probable prelude to eliminating all private ownership of land anyway.

Funny — we started preserving the old-growth for the spotted owl, since then – in some areas – the understorey became so dense that the owl can no longer manuever so they had to leave for less dense surroundings. Oops!

The eco-Marxists won’t be happy u til we ll live in a Logan’s Run type dystopia where we live in giant Habitrails unable to go outdoors lest we disturb Mother Nature.

The environmentalists are the biggest threat to our private property rights and national prosperity as they seek to eliminate private access to public land and eliminate the use of fossil fuels. They don’t give a damn about the poor, jobs, the economy, or the ability of the average American to buy cheap energy.

It’s in our own interest not to destroy animal predators that prey on mice, rats, insects, raccoons, etc. All those creatures are pests and carry diseases that can hurt human beings. Owls kill off vermin that would otherwise bother us.

Lets face it – this is no longer a country of 50 states with so-called ‘state’s rights’. What a joke Obummer is making of that! The federal govenment is grabbing land and power wherever they can. Last week Obummer managed to lock up hundreds of thousands of acres in Colorado from oil and gas exploration and who said anything? Everyone seems to be afraid to oppose this guy – WHY? Even some of his ‘supporters’ who were dumbfounded that he’d do that didn’t say a word. The ‘greens’ here in Washington state will cheer this. After all they love the spotted owl – even though none of them have every seen one and probably never will – and quite likely have never been deep into the forest like I have – and I’ve never seen one. The sooner this owl bites the dust the better off we will be here. Unless the ‘greens’ find something else to ‘save’. Like some damned slug maybe. Only a ‘green’ could love a slug.

RAR w/ Thane36425….The Barred Owl is a similar looking but much more aggressive bird. When Spotted Owls hear a Barred Owl call they will go quiet for days. Additionally, elk and deer do not live in old growth forest. They will pass right through it enroute to clear cuts and old burn areas where the new growth of grasses and smaller plants provide food.

Old growth stands of fir hemlock and pine are for all practical purposes a desert for any animal that cannot fly or climb. There is very little that grows under those mature trees. Yes it is a beautiful sight to be in old growth. It has been described as nature’s cathedral by many people – and I agree – it is an awesome experience. I’ve been in them many times having been an avid hiker and occasional overnight backpacker. I sought out those trails that covered old growth. Wildlife was sparse however. I’d see the occasional bird flitting around in the tree tops – when I could see the tree tops. When I wanted to view wildlife – or hunt as I often did in my younger years – I would seek out second growth that bordered on lands that had been clear-cut a year or two previously. Much more to see. Somehow the ‘green’s cannot get past that cathedral experience – IF they even ever had one.

Insane. Wind turbines are decimating raptors and other birds but Obama is going to shut down logging in three states for a few owls.
Many more spotted owls are lost to these bird grinders,but no cares .

Interestingly, Doc Hastings is from east of the mountains, where no trees grow. The timberlands are all in donkey districts who owe fealty to the unions (with the exception of the 3rd district). The unions who are stabbing their own members in the back, by having sexual intercourse with the environmental cultists.

You obviously don’t know much about my home state if you believe there are no forests in Eastern Washington. There are many forests growing here – and many trees growing in those forests. You just have to get some elevation since pines are not found at elevations under 2000′. Much of the northern third of the eastern portion of the state is heavily forested. There is little undergrowth since it is very dry during the summer and fall.

I am reading Eco-fascists by Elizabeth Nickson. The book does a good job of spelling out exactly what is happening. The Feds buying up properties to squeeze out private ownership is a BIG concern. Obama supporters or oblivious or otherwise unconcerned. We’re screwed.

I lived on the eastern side of Echo Pass, about halfway up the mountain, for 18 months, in the late 80′s. Even then the trees were not the deep green they should have been, the ground was covered with a thick mat of pine needles. The only birds I saw were BlueJays, and I never saw a squirrel, or any other small ground animal. The enviros had a death grip on the area then, the same as now. If the woods don’t have song birds and small ground animals, I really don’t care about the Spotted Owl.

Here is yet another case of Dueling Competent Government Agencies, where department of government is so competent to manage the forest that we give it a monopoly on making sure the fuel load in the forest does not build to the point where any fire is not manageable and while another department (maybe only one floor up in the same federal building) is so competent to manage habit that we give it a monopoly on that job.

Well it looks like the fuel load managers did their job first, so after their mis-managed forest burns down, at great expense to the taxpayers, the habitat managers get to grab more land to manage in order to compensate for the losses their co-workers caused.

The only common factor here besides ongoing destruction of wildlife is that government continues to grow bigger and control more of our lives, while we always get stuck with the bill.

The root problem is not science but power. Who decides? The myth that the EPA creates wealth, has been exposed as false, many decades ago. The EPA attacked heavy industry and effectively drove it off shore a long time ago. I recall an environmental lawyer, many years ago, who admitted that the spotted owl was simply a tactic in litigation against land use. His aim was to control land use via litigation. There are a zillion biological topics to litigate, the spotted owl is just one.

America has evolved to a point where if a timber company drives a truck into a possible habitat of the spotted owl, or it an oil driller kills a few common starlings, in an oil pool, they may bankrupt, but if a ridge line wind generator kills truck loads of birds, that is an acceptable “taking”.

The reason for this crippling of incomes is Congress. They vote for motherhood and good ideas, kiss babies, but never limit the power of the federal government by clear, hard, technically precise legislation. The result is an ever increasing bureaucracies which can never regulate enough, but can, and does create chaotic dictatorial regulations. Citizens can comment on a polysyllabic scientific regulatory treatise without any concept how it will be implemented or enforced. The result is dictatorship in the name of “science”.

I well remember a direct statement to me by a branch chief in another government bureaucracy, ” We will add one billion dollars to your cost to make things 1% better. Cost is your problem, not mine.” He did. The industry died.

Our system of government is broken. Our regulatory structure is not survivable.

Fascism would get my vote for as long as voting is permissible. Take a close look at Agenda 21 and its reurbanization plan. I suppose we’ve been dumbed down to the the point where who gets to decide doesn’t matter any more.

It’s a good thing folks like you don’t consider human beings an integral part of the environment otherwise you might actually think about including protecting people and their jobs in your “revolution”.

And you idiots don’t understand a thing about the story involved. The spotted owl’s problem isn’t loss of habitat, or at least not loss of habitat due to mankind, it’s problem is that it’s being outcompeted by another owl species. If you want to save the spotted owl, giving it more space isn’t the answer. You’ll need to do something about the other species of owl.

I claim no expertise, or financial interest in this conflict. My sole interest is the continued survival of the United States of America. And I read.

AJH1968′s notion is common, and dangerous. It parallels, in key aspects, the early days of Hitler’s Nazi party. His/her objection is anonymous. The authority to squelch criticism stems from a razor thin victory in an election. And it has the air of scientific objectivity. Hitler was voted into office, and had scientific centers which proved that the path to a better life was the extermination of certain undesirable types. It was hugely popular but not subject to close rational review.

Depending on your expert, the original spotted owl ban eliminated 20,000 – 40,000 jobs in a small area, Northern California to Southern Washington, and ran circa 200 timber mills out of business. This major regional industry was effectively destroyed. I suspect AJH1968 did not share in any of this agony in families. Other factors cloud the effect: globalization, automation, shrinking suitable forest sites. The big employers moved overseas, or to the southeast. In recent Congressional testimony of regulators, environmentalists, timber / farming interests and western state interests there was universal agreement that the legal control did little or noting to aid the spotted owl. One big reason was the over looked dominant impact of a competitor, the barred owl. An off setting employment effect was the enlarged career paths for regulators and enforcers. The current conflict centers on the federal government’s power to regulate the primary commercial value of private property, without compensating the owners.

The same effect in social control occurred in the Jewish community and the SS in Nazi Germany during the 1930s. The central government, voted into power, simply took and killed, without constraint, for the good of the nation.

I object to such laws, doubt the underlying science, and do not trust the regulators to impose self control on their power. They harm my nation.

Way to go. You certainly know how to win the argument don’t you? I’ve lived in Washington State all my life other than 4 years in the military and a couple of years in Oregon. I moved out of the southern Willamette Valley (Dorena Or. – just east of when the spotted owl ‘problem’ hit and I was no longer able to support my family. We came back to Washington where the economy was at least a bit more diverse and able to withstand the onslaught of you tree-hugging SOB’s.

So now we’ve got all those spotted owls still dying off because ‘Plan A’ (and a shitload of people out of work) didn’t help. I suspect ‘Plan B’ won’t work either but I also suspect ‘Plan B’ is nothing more than a land grab by the Feds. Why would you encourage such actions? Hmm?

So – why not wipe that foam from round your mouth and join in the conversation? Huh? Whatta ya say? Give us a hint – tell us what you think should be done instead of name-calling. Should we go shoot us some barred owls? Isn’t that what the Washington Fish and Game decided to do when those big sea lions (Hershel the Sea Lion?) started scarfing up big ole salmon and steelhead destined for the upper reaches of the Columbia at the lower locks? And at the Ballard locks separating Lake Washington from Puget Sound in an attempt to spare predation on the steelhead runs. We like our native sea-run trout – we don’t care so much for the invasive California sea lions. And the barred owl is an invasive species from the eastern US. Did you get that? INVASIVE species. Locking up more land to have sit idle kills jobs – and the barred owl will go on killing the spotted owl.

I suppose you tree-hugging SOB’s will be happy when all the world is a park and nobody has a job – but just think of the scenery you’ll be able to gawk at in your Prius when you drive out into the countryside. Oh but wait a minute – you tree-hugging SOB’s want to kill off all industry. How shall we get around? Horses? Horses fart too much – that causes greenhouse gasses doesn’t it? Hmm.

Think about what you morons are asking for. Because its likely with the moron in the White House your gonna get all you asked for – and more. Think you can handle it?

I’ll come at this from a logger’s perspective. 45 years as a faller, mostly in old growth timber, Olympic Peninsula, Washington.Many years on the Quinault Indian reservation, where un-matched stands of cedar and Sitka Spruce grew. West coast logging,and the people and communities it supported, has been in a depression like the rest of the country is now experiencing, since the early 1980′s.Dying and decaying communities up and down the coast. The commodity markets for timber had virtually no growth for decades.What support for wages and production growth existed was primarily due to strong demand from Asia, big perfect trees to Japan at premium prices (analogous to tuna in the Tokyo fish market), medium size and grade to Korea, small timber to China where it could be handled with a minimum of machinery.Very low demand in domestic markets because of cheaper lumber imports from Canada and pulp and paper from just about anywhere. Pulp grade timber hardly paid it’s way out of the woods.

The state of Washington loved those high value Asian markets, so they mowed through the state owned old growth on the Olympic Peninsula like there was no tomorrow, even to the alarm of some of us loggers that saw it was an unsustainable boom and would leave towns like Forks, Washington staring at a lot of cut over land with nothing but seedlings …”see ya,you’ll have timber again in 40 years or so, just be patient and the jobs will come back then”,sustained yield, where art thou? They should have learned a lesson from the Lake states.

Big trees gone, little,young, poles left,no mills left around that can even handle big logs, the modern preference is for computerized mills handling small timber at very high volumes with little labor input. Same in the woods,mechanized.A faller in old growth was handling 20 tons or more of very valuable, sometimes brittle wood that could have had a value of $50,000 per tree or more. Skill.Modern…little poles that the most careless immigrant from Sinaloa couldn’t break if he tried on purpose.Add in state industrial costs of insurance of $12-15/hour…the jobs aren’t coming back, owl or no owl. Shorter growing cycles on private timberlands will ensure today’s trends will continue.

I don’t blame the owl,I’d just as soon the remaining old growth is left alone on the west side of the state,I’d hate to see a short lived artificial boom slaughter it. Fire danger on the wet west side is not to be compared to the east side.Maybe immaterial, but most loggers, being an independent sort, were Republicans, mill workers, mostly unionized were Democrats. The big mills are gone, and they ain’t coming back, too capital intensive for a very short and not so sure gain. The Japan and Korea markets aren’t coming back. China might buy some knotty 2x4s from the modern pole mills.

There is certainly plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the striping of the hills and valleys in western Washington. I remember taking trips to the coast and Forks when I was a kid. All those big trees around Crescent Lake are mostly gone. You can see the denuded hills at every rise in the road. When I was young I remember not being able to see much of anything for all those trees. Now it almost looks like a giant’s garden what with the patchwork the clear-cutting of each section.

And just for you AJH1968 – all this was done under control of the Democrats. Washington state has been in the vice-like grip of Democrats since John Spellman(R) was voted out of office in 1984. Its been a succession of Democrat Governors ever since – 28 years worth! The makeup in the legislature and senate have been under Democrat control almost without a break since that time too. Those wonderful Democrats – protectors of the environment – oversaw the striping of those beautiful forests. For what? $$$ & power. Money and power – thats what it is really about for Democrats. They still have the power and they’ve pissed all the money away on nanny state crap – money that was ‘earmarked’ for education – just like the lotto money – yeah right! Money and power. They don’t give a crap about the spotted owl – or you or me or the environment for that matter.

The larger, more aggressive and closely related barred owl is extirpating the northern spotted owl. The two species cross breed and produce a breeding hybrid. US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to kill the barred owls thet have taken over spotted owl habitat. These fools are intent upon destroying a substantial portion of the spotted owl genetic pool that includes spotted/barred owl hybrids.

Moreover, barred owls also prey upon spotted owls. The extinction of spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest is inevitable.

The Endangered Species Act is one of the most misguided laws ever passed by Congress. Many actions taken under this law interfere with the evolutionary process. Extinction is critical element of evolution.

Whenever man attempts to manipulate nature, failure and unacceptable unintended consequences are the most likely outcomes.

Thankyou for your comments, let me say far more erudite then most leftwing websites,but unfortunately people do not focus on content any more. I fear that with rapidly diminishing attention spans the message that goes out to the electorate is that conservative Americans(rightly or wronglly despise the enviroment) and that is mannah from heaven for the left. I empathise with you Americans more than you can imagine and do long for a strong centre right government.
By the way not that matters I am a he and 1987 to 1987 were spent in rather hot(you will pardon the pun) South West Africa(Namibia now and Angola) what were you doing?

This is only the first step! The spotted owls have been forced out because of a more aggressive owl (the name escapes me). Obama’s long term cure is to form a government department to retrain these more aggressive owls and be more welcoming to the spotted owls. Of course, any reference to spotted owl sandwiches will be viewed as hate speech.
Also, no oil drilling or mineral mining in any of the new habitat area!

I don’t know if my post above explained it well enough. Loggers don’t really want old growth nowadays. The mills can’t handle it,the new mechanized logging equipment can’t handle it. If you see a loaded log truck with logs painted OS in blue on the ends, it means oversize. 28 inches diameter and above.20 years ago there were many mills that could handle large logs in Washington, now they have to ship those a long distance, in my local case from Grays Harbor county all the way to Tillamook, Oregon. 28 inch diameter is about the size of a 50-60 year old Douglas Fir, just like you see on the highway around Puget Sound, Interstate 5, Ft. Lewis.The Asian markets aren’t buying, except in exceptional cases, like large beams for temple reconstruction.

Alaska is somewhat different, Native Corporations, with land claim settlements, have been doing the bulk of what logging is done there, maybe with some exports there, I don’t know.What mills they had have almost all shut down, I think they were Japanese owned.

Old growth takes specialized, very expensive, equipment and very experienced crews.Both put out to pasture. Google all the junkyards of abandoned Skagit yarders,Washington Iron Works, Madill Logging equipment…all out of business, no demand for this equipment. Some still being used, as in New Zealand…logging small timber as seen on YouTube.

Last but not least, if you put most modern crews in old growth, assuming they had the equipment,you’d be well advised to have an ambulance permanently at the job site.Most of the remaining old growth is on very rugged,steep ground. Remember what I posted above about falling a 25 ton tree. That is far from an exaggeration.A log truck load is ca.25 tons. I’ve cut thousands of trees that had more than 2, sometimes 3 truckloads in them.Usually leaning heavily,sometimes with other big trees lodged in them from centuries of storms, sometimes partially rotten, steep ground. A recipe for death or dismembership with the slightest mistake.Break the tree over a rock or stump, and you’ve wasted centuries of growth and tens of thousands of dollars. No place for amateurism.

Every logger of any experience and a bit of age has seen a lot of blood, some maybe of his own, and more than likely violent death.I’ve seen plenty myself, and I was a rifleman in a war a long time ago. The last year I worked, around 5 years ago, 2 of my fellow crew members were killed falling second growth, immigrants from Mexico. I have a very incomplete list of well over 200 names of loggers killed here in Grays Harbor county.County has a population of ca. 60,000, a fraction were and are loggers. Andrew Mason Prouty didn’t entitle his book “More Deadly than War” for nothing.

I think I’d almost cry if I saw a crew of amateurs smashing up big old trees that an old timer could have saved to the top. Speed and run till you drop is what’s wanted now in the little tree stands, production, production, production.The old John Henry song about him racing a steam drill.Same thing, older guys with the matchless skills need not apply, there’s an endless stream of young competition.

Loggers were the most ingenious people I’ve ever been around and I’ve been sickened by the portrayal of them as bad guys in some quarters. It’s past time to put that away and inform themselves fully, and as evenhanded and non-political as possible. It’s far more complex than most can even imagine.

Thank you for your contribution to my country and insight into this problem. It is obvious from your thoughts that decades ago, there should have been government interest in curtaining the harvesting of old growth timber in a small section of the nation. In an era of quarterly profit somebody has to consider generational consequences. No thinking American seeks the complete absence of the federal government, a common red herring for liberals. But we do demand cost effective solutions, with risks being shared by all stake holders. I note in your county of 60,000 people, 200 or more were killed in logging. I know of no comparable population of 60,000 government employees who risk this death rate in their careers. The regional destroyed careers due to the spotted owl alone exceeds the entire population of the EPA. While it is essentially impossible to fire a government worker, it is equally difficult to keep a logger alive, and employed until retirement age. I submit the contribution, the remuneration, the risks of death, permanent injury, or bankruptcy, in government, large corporations, and skilled workers, is grossly unbalanced. The result is the death of the American dream: if I work hard, learn to make things, contribute, and risk, then it is reasonable that I will share in America’s wealth creation.

JHW would have done better becoming a lobbyist than taking down 60 ton trees. Making things in this nation can be fatal to your career, or your life, and you have little say in the matter. This is not unique in history. Intensity vertical organizations, dictatorships, have frequently existed throughout the history of societies. None survived over time. They either evolve, or become extinct. This is true for governments, or spotted owls.

I like to believe the spotted owl is sacred and belongs in the old growth forest sanctuaries even protected from the sacred barred owl. To think how tame the spotted owl is just like the saw whet owl is in my area as if this owl comes from another age before the fear from the demons in man
and now it seems the christian the Jew and Islam people have been stabbed by the atheist gospel and it blinds them poisons their blood and greed is the world’s religion
my opinion